A Way With Words or Whatever
by Mary le Bow
Summary: Some things are better left unsaid. And Moran gets the last word.
1. Chapter 1

_ This is for a person who shall remain nameless, who wants to see Holmes amazed by a friend's unsuspected talent. Personally, I think that would make a great challenge and ought to be posted as such. (Yes, that was a hint, because I'm too lazy to do it.)_

_ And don't worry; there's a translation at the end._

* * *

><p><strong>A Way With Words<strong>

"You don't issue invitations, Lestrade. This is your less-than-subtle way of obtaining my help without asking for it."

Whatever Lestrade might think of this bit of deduction, I forgave Holmes for it. We were neither of us happy to be summoned to Scotland Yard early on a Sunday morning.

"You've got it all wrong, Mr. Holmes." Lestrade grinned, rocking back on his heels, thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat.

Every time he did that, I saw trouble approaching.

"In fact," Lestrade went on, "you're likely to need my help before the hour is out."

As the inspector opened his office door to admit us, Holmes bent and whispered in my ear, "Do let me know if your feet get cold in the next hour, Watson. It might indicate that hell is freezing over."

Therefore I was choked with laughter when I confronted the man waiting in the office. He wore a shabby-genteel black frock coat and trousers, and a perfectly white shirt, and had not removed his battered hat. The clothes had an indefinably foreign cut, as did his dark, handsome features.

"How do you do, sir?" I addressed him.

"Mr. Schwartz doesn't speak English," Lestrade informed us.

"And it all becomes clear!" Holmes chuckled. "You need an interpreter. Didn't I tell you a German dictionary would come in handy someday?"

"Not at all." Lestrade turned to the foreign gentleman and offered him a cigarette. "_Gut morgn_."

The man almost dropped the cigarette. With an astonished look that mirrored Holmes', he said, "_Man kann Yiddish reden_?"

"_Gewis_," Lestrade replied. "_Derzeil mir wos pasiert ist_."

"_Nu, ich gang_-" Mr. Schartz broke off, glancing at the flabbergasted Holmes. "_Wer ist der nudnik_?"

"_Mein behelfer,_ Sherlock Holmes," Lestrade said.

"Sherlock Holmes?" Mr. Schwartz gazed at my friend, seeming dissatisfied. "_Ich gleibt er war hoicher._"

Lestrade shrugged. "_Ich gleibt er war kluger_."

A lengthy conversation ensued, not a word of which I understood.

After Mr. Schwartz had departed, apparently satisfied with the outcome of his dealings with the Metropolitan Police, a weighty silence fell in Lestrade's office. The inspector seemed content to put his feet up on the desk, light a cigar, and marinate in smugness. Holmes wore the bewildered expression of a witness to some event beyond comprehension.

No longer able to contain myself, I burst into laughter, which went on for some time. Once I was capable of speech, I wiped tears from my eyes and asked, "Lestrade, how long have you been waiting to do that?"

Holmes answered for him. "Seven long years, one suspects, Watson, ever since I chided him for being unable to read a single foreign word written on a wall. The question is, where on earth did the good inspector learn to speak Yiddish?"

"The East End," Lestrade said, as if it were the most obvious answer imaginable. "You may not know this, Mr. Holmes, but a hundred thousand immigrants from Europe are living in London. The times are changing, and we must change with them."

"This from the man whose children had to show him how to use a telephone," Holmes muttered.

Mercifully, a rap on the door ended the contest. Gregson poked his head in, saying, "_Bonjour, mes amis. Comment-allez vous_?"

To this day, I have never been sure if Holmes was overcome and swooned, or if he deliberately escaped into unconsciousness by slamming his head on Lestrade's desk.

* * *

><p><em>The conversation went like this:<em>

_ Lestrade: Good morning._

_ Schwartz: You speak Yiddish?_

_ Lestrade: Certainly. Tell me what happened._

_ Schwartz: Well, I went- Who's the annoying guy?_

_ Lestrade: My assistant, Sherlock Holmes._

_ Schwartz: Sherlock Holmes? I thought he was taller._

_ Lestrade: I thought he was smarter._


	2. Chapter 2 Brother's Keeper

"Mrs. Hudson! _Mrs. Hudson_!" Holmes bellowed, slamming the front door. He took the stairs two at a time, continuing to shout in vain.

When he arrived, breathless and flurried, in our sitting room, I set my newspaper aside. "It's no use, Holmes. She's gone out, and won't return for some hours."

"Are you positive?"

"That's what she told me. As for corroborating evidence, she was wearing her best dress. The one that isn't black."

"Dash it all, I wanted her to hail us a cab. Well, I suppose we'll have to do it ourselves."

"Are we going somewhere?"

"No time to explain," Holmes said, dragging me out of my chair. "Something dreadful has happened!"

And so I found myself being thrust down the stairs, down Baker Street, and flung into the first available cab.

"Whitehall, and hurry!" Holmes yelled at the driver, throwing half a crown at the poor man.

"Now," I said, once we were weaving through the evening rush hour traffic, "what is so urgent that I am on my way to Whitehall without so much as my hat?"

"I've been at the Diogenes Club. The staff informed me that my brother has been absent for the past six Monday evenings."

"Surely that is not the something dreadful you mentioned."

"But it is, Watson, it is! Mycroft never goes anywhere but to work, to his club, and home. He never breaks his routine. And now he has done so, not once, but six times in as many weeks. Something must be wrong."

"Now, Holmes." I began to assure him that he was overreacting. "Your brother is probably just-" In mid-sentence, however, it began to dawn on me that Mycroft's behavior was, for him, positively bizarre. "Has he mentioned feeling depressed, or concerned for his safety?"

"He's Mycroft. He hasn't mentioned anything."

"Well, at least that's normal." I tried to sound encouraging. "What do you plan to do?"

"This is Monday," he said, as if that explained his entire thought process.

Unfortunately, it did not. "Yes, it is. And?"

"And we are on our way to Whitehall, so that we may observe him leave work, follow him, and discover where he goes."

"I see. Bearing in mind that he is even more observant than you, how are we to do that without attracting his notice?"

Holmes' only answer to that rather good question was a scowl.

We arrived at the elder Holmes brother's place of employment just in time to spot Mycroft heaving his impressive bulk into a waiting hansom, which listed alarmingly at the added weight.

Holmes directed our driver, "Follow that cab! The one with the straining horse and bending axles."

The driver did, all the way to a side street off the Strand, where Mycroft, after a considerable struggle, alighted outside a nondescript building. We waited until he had let himself in, then sent our cab off.

A variety of signs affixed to the building's frontage provided some clue as to what might have brought Mycroft there. One at a time, I examined them, hoping to find some mundane reason for his interest in the place.

"There," I pointed out a likely one to Holmes. "'A. J. Walker, D.D.S.' Maybe your brother has gone to the dentist."

"Six times in six weeks?" Holmes snorted in derision.

"Very well, then, here's another. 'Fleet Barbers, S. Todd, Prop.' Perhaps he's gone to get a—well, no, he wouldn't have his hair cut every week, either."

"Watson, I do believe your deductive abilities are improving."

I could find nothing in the placards advertising a florist, dancing lessons, and a purveyor of aluminum crutches, that might explain Mycroft's visits.

Inside the building, a piano began to play a lively tune, presumably in the dance studio.

Holmes, stretching to capacity, managed to get his fingers on the window ledge overhead. "If I could see what was in here, I might be able to deduce what Mycroft wants with it. Give me a boost, Watson."

"I suppose using the front door like other people is too much to ask," I said, linking my hands to provide him a lift.

Standing on my bent knee, Holmes peeked into the room. By craning my neck and gazing directly up, I could see him blink, then turn pale.

With a cry of horror, he jumped down, leaned against the brick wall, and clutched his chest.

"Holmes, are you all right?" I exclaimed. "Is your brother in there? What did you see?"

"Horrible," he panted. "Indescribable! I've never seen the like! Words fail me, Watson, you'll have to look for yourself! Be brave!"

Whatever dark deeds Mycroft was up to in there, it hardly seemed fair to spy on him. Even so, I peered through the same window whose view had given Holmes such a jolt.

What I saw will be etched in my memory until my dying day.

I saw a spacious room, lacking any furniture but the cheerfully tinkling piano. To its sprightly music, couples whirled about the polished floor, dancing as if they hadn't a care in the world.

One of the dancers was Mycroft Holmes.

I looked down at Sherlock Holmes. "I didn't know your brother could dance."

"I didn't know he could _walk,_" he replied. "But that isn't the worst of it. Look again."

I did so. "Good heavens, is he dancing with _Mrs. Hudson_?"

"You see?" Holmes cried. "The apocalypse is upon us! All that is needed now is for Moriarty to take up the banjo!"

All unbidden, a terrifying image formed in my mind's eye: Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson dancing to the music of a duet, Holmes on the violin and Moriarty on the banjo.

"I want a drink," I said, climbing down. "Several drinks, in fact. Please get me to the Criterion Bar, and hurry."

"Gladly. By the way, Watson, should you possess some hidden talent, I would appreciate it if you would keep it to yourself."

"Does this mean you'd prefer not to know that I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue?"

"Please, my dear fellow, I've had enough excitement for one evening."


	3. Chapter 3 No Rest For the Wicked

Now, we all have our interests. We all have our whimsies. There's no predicting or controlling who'll lose his head over what. Take me, for instance. I have an interest in hunting. Because of that interest, I once went so far as to crawl down a sewer after a man-eating tiger.

_Mad_, the average person would say to that. Or at least, _What a waste of a perfectly good pair of Wellies._ I understand. One man's hobby is another man's grounds for committal.

What I cannot for the life of me understand is the professor's new toy.

This morning, there he sat at his desk, surrounded by stolen artwork and fancy abacuses, playing with a little wooden disk on a string. A grown man with a brain the size of Manchester, flipping this toy up and down.

"Rotational inertia, Moran," he said to me, watching the disk spin on the end of its string. "Fascinating."

"I believe that's called making it sleep, Professor," I said, before he had himself hypnotized by the bloody thing.

"Have you no appreciation for physics, Colonel?" he asked, narrowing his eyes in that eerie way he has.

I shrugged. "When it comes to ballistics, I do."

He shuddered. "Applied science," he said, the way most men would say _field rations_.

"You liked ballistics pretty well a few months ago, when you sent me to the wilds of Scotland to get rid of that old cow who'd gotten in your way—and I'm not talking about a Hereford."

He made the toy bob up and down some more.

"Can you walk the dog?" I asked.

He gave me another narrow-eyed look. "I have no intention of doing parlor tricks for your amusement, sir."

That meant he couldn't.

I sat down and lit a cigar. "I ought to take some time off. Ride my own hobby for a while, you know?"

"Killing exotic animals does not constitute a hobby, Moran."

"I meant my other hobby," I clarified.

"Writing books about killing exotic animals does not constitute a hobby, either."

"My _other_ other hobby."

"Cheating at cards?"

By then, I really wanted to annoy him. No particular reason; I just did. "Why, Professor, I must have forgotten to tell you. That time you sent me to Scotland—you remember."

"Yes, yes! Make your point, Moran." He was starting to move his head around like a snake charmer's cobra.

I suppressed a wicked laugh. "Well, I discovered a very absorbing traditional Scottish pastime."

"Colonel Moran, our association has not been without mutual benefit. I would regret being the cause of your untimely death. However-" He paused dramatically. "-if you commence to prance about in a skirt, blowing on bagpipes, I must and shall kill you."

"That isn't the pastime I mean," I protested, innocent as a babe in arms.

"What do you mean, then?"

There is an advantage to growing a mustache as enormous as mine. You can grin behind it all you want, and no one's the wiser. "You'll see," I said.


	4. Chapter 4 A Nice Walk Spoiled

At ten on Tuesday morning, Mrs. Hudson set a splendid breakfast before us. Then she leaned forward, grasped Holmes' right earlobe in her left hand, and my left earlobe in her right hand, and yanked.

"That's for not minding your own business last night! Can't a person take dancing lessons in peace?" she exclaimed, turning her back on our anguished cries. "Inspector Athelney Jones is here. I'll send him up."

I rubbed my smarting ear. "Holmes, I believe we've offended her at last."

"That is a workable theory, Watson."

The sound of galumphing rang from the stairs. Holmes cocked his head. "The inspector is not alone. There are two distinct treads, one belonging to a man of questionable health and burly build—Athelney Jones, if the damage to my ear is not more serious than I believe—while the other is that of a lighter and sprier individual."

"Heaven help us," I said, rolling my eyes. "He's probably brought along some newly minted, adolescent constable."

"Watson, there is no reason to assume his companion is an adolescent or a constable."

"Come in!" I answered the short rap on our sitting room door. Athelney Jones came in, with a wide-eyed, acne-pocked constable at his heels like a faithful spaniel. "Is that reason enough?" I asked Holmes.

He sighed. "Sit down and join us, Jones. What has baffled the imbeciles at Scotland Yard today?"

The young constable, whose gaze had been reverently fixed on the inspector, gasped and stared at Holmes as if he had uttered unspeakable blasphemy.

"Close your mouth and sit down," Jones directed him. "Mr. Holmes finds his wit very amusing. You'll get used to it." He took part of his own advice and sat.

I felt both admiration and pity for Jones. To a physician, the signs were clear as glass. His unnaturally ruddy complexion, the puffiness of his face and extremities, all indicated plethora, an excess of fluid in the blood. The bright, intelligent eyes which glittered from that swollen face never wavered, though; he never complained or so much as spoke of his condition.

Despite my heartfelt compassion, all I could think to say was a distinctly inane, "Nice socks."

"Thank you," Jones said. "I knitted them myself."

After two days of it, I was becoming inured to discovering surprising abilities in my associates.

Holmes was less phlegmatic. He nodded at the nervous young constable. "And what does _he_ do? Magic tricks? Mime?"

"It's his first day on the job," Jones said. "All he does is watch and learn."

Was that an admonitory glare he shot at the boy?

The inspector turned to Holmes, asking, "Have you ever known a man to drop dead playing golf?"

"No," Holmes admitted. "It would seem unlikely in any case, there being such an abundance of physicians on golf courses. Surely any golfer who required it would have his pick of medical aid."

"Be that as it may, a man's dead on the course at Hampstead, and not from natural causes."

* * *

><p>The unfortunate victim of—whatever-lay belly-up on the green, his spike-shod feet in the water hazard and a club still clutched in his hand. He had been a man of middle years and good physical condition. His pomaded hair and waxed mustache told of a concern for personal appearance, despite the fact that he had inexplicably chosen to wear plaid knee pants and a matching tam-o-shanter.<p>

I was nearly overcome by horror. To think that such a dreadful fate could befall a player of my native Scotland's traditional sport!

Holmes was taken aback for another reason. "Do you know who this is?" he demanded of Jones, in great agitation.

"Flash Harry Feldman," the teenage constable spoke up. "The most dangerous accountant in London!"

We stared at him. He blushed crimson. "You—you can tell by his golf club," he stammered. "See, it's engraved. It says _Harry_ _Feldman_."

Holmes regarded him curiously. "How do you know Flash Harry in the first place?"

"Well, I don't, sir. That is, not personally. It isn't as if he's a friend, or anything. Even if I did know him, I wouldn't like him. He's a criminal. Of course, now that he's dead, I suppose he isn't, anymore."

Jones heaved a sigh. "He knows him because Flash Harry's doings were all but a weekly feature in the _Police Gazette_."

I asked the obvious question. "If the police knew all about this man's crimes, why didn't you simply arrest him?"

"It wasn't that easy," Jones said, as if to a child of six. "Flash Harry was no common crook. He was a man of wealth and taste." After a second look at the plaid knee pants, he amended, "Usually."

"What was the nature of his game?" I inquired.

Jones consulted his notebook. "Handicap of twenty-eight." He looked up. "Oh, you mean what he did that was illegal."

"Yes, not that it shouldn't be illegal to play golf so ineptly."

"He kept the books for a powerful criminal organization," Jones explained. "Rumor has it the head of the whole thing is a math professor."

I wrinkled my brow. "That makes no sense. Why would a math professor need an accountant to do his counting?"

"By the looks of Flash Harry," Jones said, "he didn't need him anymore."

"Watson," Holmes broke in impatiently, "can you establish the cause of death?"

"At a glance," I told him. "A small, hard, round object hit him right between the eyes."

"A golf ball, for instance."

I endeavored to avoid levity in my tone. "Under the circumstances, that seems likely."

"Where would the murder weapon be now?" Jones asked.

With even less facetiousness, I indicated the water hazard.

"Constable!" Jones barked. "Find it."

As the constable waded into the hazard in search of the murderous golf ball, Jones asked, "What's the time of death?"

I didn't waste time explaining rigor mortis and all that. "Less than three hours."

"I've got it, sir!" the constable cried in triumph, holding aloft a dripping, algae-covered golf ball.

"That one's been in there a deal more than three hours," the inspector dismissed it. "Toss it out and keep looking."

His hopes of heroism dashed, the young policeman lobbed the warped golf ball onto the grass and resumed his search.

Jones told us what little was known of suspects in the case, much interrupted by the constable's renewed sloshing, splashing, and regular announcements of, "Here's another one, sir!"

"We should have brought Toby," I murmured to Holmes. "He's good at fetching balls, and quieter about it."

"To clarify, Jones," Holmes said, "two gentlemen were seen in the vicinity early this morning?"

"That's right. One was an older man, balding, with a large mustache and, quote-" He consulted his notes, as if to have ready proof that someone had actually said such a thing. "'-the jaw of a sensualist.' Unquote. The other was a tall, thin gentleman with a very prominent forehead. That one kept playing with some kind of toy, a round gadget on a string."

"Odd," I mused. "One would think that being on a golf course, he might play golf."

"There's no accounting for taste," Holmes said, scratching his chin in deep contemplation. "Do you know what I think, Inspector?"

"That's the last of them, sir!" The constable fished his twenty-eighth green, slimy golf ball out of the hazard and sloshed his way back to dry land, pulling off the water weeds that festooned his soaked uniform sleeves. Then he screamed. "Sir! Sir! There's a leech stuck to my hand! A huge red leech! It's repulsive! Get it off! _Get it off_!"

Jones restrained the shrieking, hopping constable while I removed the repulsive red leech and dropped it into the water from which it had come.

"I think this man wasn't killed by a golf ball at all," Holmes said. "Looking for one was a complete waste of time."

The constable, who had finally calmed himself enough to sit on the grass and pour water out of his boots, gave an inarticulate cry, and burst into tears.

"Constable Hopkins!" Jones roared. "Remember your dignity!"

That seemed singularly poor advice to give a sodden, sobbing, bleeding, algae-slimed individual. I patted the young man's shoulder in sympathy, and offered him my handkerchief. He used it vigorously.

"No," Holmes mused, as if nothing had transpired which might have had the effect of interrupting his cogitation. "I think this man was killed by a round object on a string, wielded by a tall, thin gentleman with a very prominent forehead."


	5. Chapter 5 Watson's Trying Day

Little did I suspect that the day which started with my performance of an emergency leech-ectomy could possibly get worse.

How was I to know that Constable Hopkins was allergic to alcohol, and that the swallow of medicinal brandy I gave him would render him senseless?

How could I have predicted that the golf course would reopen before Inspector Jones authorized any such action, let alone that an unconscious policeman and a dead golfer beside a water hazard would constitute a stymie, much to the disgust of the gentleman whose ball landed between them?

I contemplated my innocence in the whole dreadful affair as Flash Harry Feldman's earthly remains were loaded into a police ambulance by two conscious constables. This, at least, removed the stymie, although it was of limited benefit to the gentleman, who had by then lost track of which of the twenty-nine nearby golf balls was his.

As the others in the golfer's foursome suggested various farfetched courses of action, I saw Constable Hopkins placed in the ambulance, hoped he wouldn't wake up immediately, then climbed aboard with the driver. I hesitated to take Hopkins to the morgue along with Harry, but I couldn't very well request a side trip.

* * *

><p>The police surgeon concurred with my opinion as to the cause of Feldman's death. He then suggested that as I was responsible for having brought a live body to the morgue, in the person of Constable Hopkins, I was responsible for removing it. While I did not exactly concur with his opinion regarding who was at fault, I did acknowledge his point.<p>

The coroner's assistant had thoughtfully laid Hopkins on a nice, cool marble slab to recuperate. He had even covered him with a sheet. ("Not the face," I had reminded him. "Sorry. Force of habit," had been his sheepish reply.)

I tapped the constable's shoulder. "Hopkins, it's time to wake up."

He opened his eyes and forced them to focus on me. "Oh, no. You're real. I hoped you were only a bad dream."

As I helped him off the slab, he went on, "Do you ever have bad dreams? Like the one where you're late for school, and no matter what you do, you can't seem to get there? Or the one about being in Piccadilly Circus, and everyone's staring at you, and you suddenly realize you're naked?"

"I can't say that I have. Come along, now, Constable. The door is just over here."

"Where are we?"

"It's better you don't know. Really."

"Do you ever dream you're kissing a pretty lady, but she turns into a giant leopard and bites your head off?"

"Are you quite positive the police force is the right career for you?" I asked, as neutrally as possible.

"My mother wanted me to be an accountant. She said it was safer."

"Well, so much for that, eh?"

* * *

><p>I will not recount here the words of Mrs. Hopkins when her son, who had left the house in robust health, returned under a doctor's care. At least, I will not recount them until I have looked up their correct spelling. I can only state categorically that until that moment, I had never suspected such a talent for profanity might exist in a young policeman's dear, gray-haired mother.<p>

As it was, I was not surprised so much as interested, when I let myself out and found Holmes, with Toby, sitting on the steps and smoking a pipe—Holmes, that is, not Toby. Had Toby been smoking the pipe and Holmes scratching his ear with his foot, instead of the other way round, I might very well have been surprised. Then again, given the day's events, perhaps not.

"Toby seems to be off his feed today, Watson," Holmes remarked. "I wished him to follow the scent of Feldman's killer. Instead, he has brought me to the groundskeeper's cottage, the eighteenth hole, a delightful little pub in the fieldhouse, Scotland Yard, Baker Street, the morgue, and now here. It seems he is confused as to which of the many scent trails to follow. I have, I confess, little desire to return to the golf course and start over once again."

I didn't care, especially, but I dutifully asked, "What will you do?"

"It is imperative that I find some evidence implicating Moriarty in Feldman's death. I shall begin by attending Feldman's funeral disguised as one of his foreign relatives."

"And if anyone should speak to you in a language you don't understand—Yiddish, for instance?"

"I shall pretend to be too grief-stricken to make conversation."

I thought it a terrible plan, but was wise enough not to say so.


	6. Chapter 6  Nobody's Wild About Harry

This time, the professor surprised even me. I would have sworn he wasted most of Monday playing with a silly toy.

Not so. On Tuesday, it turned out his toy was lead-weighted and as deadly as a footpad's cosh, just the thing for removing Flash Harry, who'd become a liability.

Quite a sight that was, too. One minute, Harry's showing the professor how his slice is coming along, and the next, he's fertilizer. I almost missed it. Harry I didn't miss at all.

* * *

><p>Funerals ought to be dignified affairs, but his more resembled a three-ring circus.<p>

First off, there were more plainclothes coppers lurking about than at the Policemen's Ball, including one little rat-faced dandy who, every time Harry's relations starting jabbering their foreign lingo, tried to look like he had no clue what they were saying. Harry'd had his suspicions that his white-sheep cousin, Schwartz, had found a copper who could understand him, and had been informing on him. It appeared he'd been right, for once.

Ignoring the rozzer in such a way as to make it sure they were as close as messmates, was a tall, bony old geezer sporting a face full of white whiskers. Every time somebody so much as said a word to him, he cried like Victoria Falls. Harry's cousin (not Schwartz; this poor blighter's name was Pinchas), asked him what time it was, and he fell sobbing onto another bloke. That one was shorter and stockier, with a gimp leg. A veteran, or my name isn't Moran.

I marked Ratty as a native speaker, Geezer as a distraction, and Soldier Boy as the consulting detective the professor's narks had warned him was on the case.

Then of course, there were the people who actually belonged there.

Harry's mother persisted in the belief that her son was a nice Jewish boy. Two out of three ain't bad, as they say.

Harry's father was sure his son was a boy, but about the other two, he had his doubts.

There was also Harry's granny from the Old Country (no speakee English, and lucky for her, considering what she might have learned about Harry if she had.)

Harry's wife, a diamond-dripping harpy, forty but trying to look twenty-five, knew all about Harry and consequently wasn't exactly prostrate with grief.

Harry's mistress actually was twenty-five, a fine figure of a woman, with fake red hair and a genuine French accent. Her name was Heloise, but for obvious reasons, she made everybody call her Marie. She knew Harry, too, but at least she was sorry to see his money go.

Harry's kiddies, the ones he admitted to and otherwise, took after him in looks, the poor little brats.

There was the rabbi, naturally, and the pallbearers, all of whom looked prepared to sink Harry Feldman in hallowed ground for the sole purpose of making sure he stayed put.

The professor wasn't there, much as it would have amused him; he couldn't take the risk of being associated with a criminal. That had, after all, been the problem with Harry. He had let himself get famous.

I had a legitimate excuse for being there; Harry and I had played golf together. Not that anyone questioned me; not one seemed to mark my presence. The family was weeping and wailing (or making a good show of it,) the detective was taken up with his conspicuous distraction, the little copper pretended he didn't know what was going on, and another, tall, blond copper was occupied chatting up Marie—in French, no less. Complete waste of time; he couldn't afford her. Unless...

No honest copper could afford Marie, but one on the take might. That was something I could use—or rather, tell the professor so he could use it.

* * *

><p><em> It's pronounced "Pink-us," you evil-minded thing, you!<em>


	7. Chapter 7 Watson's Watch

"I was under the impression that a disguise is meant to be _inconspicuous_!" I shouted through Holmes' bedroom door. "What could possibly be less inconspicuous than a grown man bursting into tears in response to being asked what bloody _time _it is?"

Holmes emerged, sans white whiskers and wig. "I assure you, Watson, that it was necessary. How was I to otherwise be plausible as a foreign relation, unable to speak English?"

My retort was such that it was just as well I had no chance to speak it, as Mrs. Hudson chose that moment to knock on the sitting room door.

"Inspector Lestrade to see you," she said.

"Excellent!" Holmes rubbed his palms together. "This should prove interesting. By the way, Watson, what time is it?"

I reached for my pocket watch.

It was gone, chain and all. I spent a moment staring at my bare waistcoat, trying to make sense of what my eyes told me. "My watch is missing!"

Lestrade came in, reaching into his pocket. "Here you are, Doctor." He held out my watch.

"How on earth do you come to have it?" I asked.

"Pinchas Feldman distracted you by asking the time, while his kids lifted it. Along with this." He produced the chain. "These." My cufflinks emerged from his pocket. "And this." He added a five-pound note.

"That is deplorable!" I exclaimed.

"They got the rabbi's wallet and twenty-five shillings out of the alms box, too."

"I assumed Fagan was a fictional character."

Holmes came as close to laughter as he was able.

"I suppose you knew all the time that I was being robbed?" I demanded of him.

"Of course, but I could hardly draw your attention to it without making a spectacle of myself." He turned his attention to the inspector. "Speaking of which, I hope that you did not, in your zeal for justice, make it known that you are a police officer by doing something obvious, such as shaking down the children in the middle of the temple?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Constable Hopkins did it."

"Constable Hopkins?" I asked. "Is he fit for duty?"

"Well, I questioned that myself, when he held the little urchins upside down and shook them. Valuables flew out in all directions. Not the most dignified conclusion to a funeral."

Mrs. Hudson knocked again. "Inspector Gregson to see you."

"Well!" Holmes all but clapped his hands. "This is turning into quite the impromptu party."

I had no opportunity to ask what so delighted him about this, before Gregson appeared in person, throwing his hat on the table and exclaiming, "Do you know what that woman said to me?"

"We can hardly be expected to," Holmes pointed out.

Blushing scarlet, Gregson whispered in his ear.

"My word!" Holmes expostulated. He paused. "I had no idea Mrs. Hudson spoke French."

"Not her!" Gregson said impatiently. "Marie!"

"Thank heaven for that. The suggestion was impertinent enough without having come from someone of sufficient age to be your mother. Do be more specific in future."

"If I had thought there was the slightest chance you'd get it wrong, I would have."

Gregson and Lestrade pretended not to look at each other. I theorized that both had made an excuse to come here in order to ask Holmes' advice, and that now, each hoped the other would do it first.

Brandy seemed an excellent aid to conversation. I poured four rather large snifters and passed them around. What with that, and the concomitant mingled smokes of cigarettes, cigar, and pipe, the atmosphere had assumed something of the ambience of a gentlemen's club, by the time Holmes took his pipe out of his mouth and asked, "Will one of you volunteer, or must I flip a coin?"


	8. Chapter 8 Better Left Unsaid

Moriarty, Holmes reasoned, had forged a complex chain of events, including the murder of the unfortunate Flash Harry, for the express purpose of attracting Scotland Yard's notice. Or rather, for the purpose of attracting the notice of some police official who could be duped, bribed, or blackmailed into becoming his informant. I protested that Tobias Gregson didn't have a subtle bone in his body, and that therefore no one in his right mind would choose him for such a devious, let alone responsible job, but Holmes was adamant. He also stated categorically that the one thing we must not fail to do, was maintain close observation of the inspector's every interaction with the very friendly Marie.

"I don't think I want to do that," I said. "It sounds quite an unbecoming activity for a gentleman."

"Then be glad," he replied, "that neither you, nor I, nor anyone of our acquaintance is a gentleman."

And he proceeded in his customary fashion, smoking continuously for eighteen hours whilst devising a mind-bogglingly complicated plan sure to inconvenience a great many people. Gregson, once Holmes had painstakingly explained that he would not actually be _taking _a bribe, but only _pretending_ to take one, went along with the plan with less obvious reluctance than I.

So we found ourselves in the ballroom of the nondescript building off the Strand, watching Gregson dance the polka with a woman of dubious morals. By "we," I do not mean only Holmes and I, but also witnesses in the persons of Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson, who seemed disgruntled by the whole affair and were only persuaded to take part as a service to the British Empire. In contrast, Inspectors Lestrade and Jones, as well as Constable Hopkins (unrecognizable in plain clothes,) appeared quite amused.

I had pointed out that it would seem odd were we to arrive without dance partners. Holmes had retorted, "While it would hardly be odd for me, you may, if you insist, embroil the dreary Miss Morstan in an incident certain to make her doubt the wisdom of further association with you."

"Splendid," I had responded. "Do you have a decent pair of gloves, or must you borrow some of mine again?"

At any rate, there we were, dancing or not as befit our abilities and inclinations, waiting to witness Marie offer a bribe to a police officer.

In the pleasant golden flicker of the wall sconces, the cheerful music, and of course Miss Morstan's charming company, I began to hope that Holmes had been mistaken for once, and that no one would intrude upon my evening's enjoyment by committing some noteworthy breach of the peace.

Sadly, my hopes were soon dashed, although not quite in the manner I had anticipated. For some inexplicable reason, Lestrade, standing with Jones under one of the warmly glowing scones, reached out as Gregson whisked by with Marie and pulled him under the light.

"Gregson," he said, in a determined manner that brooked no argument, "you probably believe I have absolutely no respect for you. Well, you're wrong. The fact is, I think you're one of the finest policemen I've ever met."

Gregson wrinkled his brow and cogitated exactly long enough for me to suspect something had gone bizarrely awry. My suspicion hardened into certainty when he replied, "I'm glad you said that, Lestrade. It gives me the chance to finally tell you about my feelings for you."

"I know how you feel about me," Lestrade said. "You can't stand me."

"That's what I want everyone else to think," Gregson answered, ignoring Marie's impatient tug on his arm. "Secretly, though, I find you—extremely attractive."

Lestrade clapped a hand to his jaw in an attempt to keep it from dropping to the floor. "Oh, no!" he gasped. "No, no, no, no, no, no! _No!_ Jones, help me. Tell me he didn't say what I think he said."

Jones, by his expression, was about to fall on the floor in cardiac arrest, hysterical laughter, or both. "Gregson, you idiot! What did you tell him for? I had a wager with the lads in Vice that he'd never figure it out. Now I owe Donaldson ten quid!"

Marie tugged again at Gregson's arm. She was a woman of classical proportions; the force spun him so that he was eye to eye with her. In deepest indignation, and a French accent fit for music hall comedy, she demanded, "How am I supposed to bring you under my evil influence, when you are more interested in him than me? _Le professeur_ will be furious!"

"Is it my fault you're a terrible judge of character?" Gregson exclaimed.

Hustling Mary along with me, I sped across the room to Holmes. "Something has gone quite wrong!"

"Your firm grip upon reality never wavers, Watson."

Under the sconce, Jones was continuing, "What's gotten into you people, anyway? You're acting like you've been nipping at the rye I keep hidden in my office."

Constable Hopkins had hurried to aid his superior, but failed in his mission. "You mean that bottle you keep on the shelf, sir, in the dead file box? The one marked 'CAUTION: NITROGLYCERIN,' under the postmortem photographs of that poor leper who was run over by an omnibus, where you think no one would look, sir?"

"That's the one," Jones said. "Constable, you may well be the most irritating young man in the world, but you do have the makings of a rare detective."

Holmes grabbed for his brother as Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson danced by. "Brother, assist me in a little experiment."

Mycroft gave him a dour look. "The last time you said that, we detonated the nursery."

"Has it been so long?" Holmes asked wistfully. "Well, never mind. Now, Mycroft, as my brother, give your honest opinion of me."

"If I must. You, Sherlock, as my brother or anyone else, are a unique individual."

"That's fine, Mycroft. Continue over here, if you please," said Holmes, drawing us to the spot quitted by Jones and Lestrade. Lestrade now slumped pale and speechless upon a chair in a corner. Jones used the fringe of his hand-knitted scarf to fan cool air on his colleague's face.

Holmes sniffed. "Do any of you smell oranges?'

"It smells like apples to me," I said.

"We'll compare apples and oranges later," Holmes said. "In the meantime, Mycroft, go on telling us your opinion of me."

"Oh, very well," Mycroft said, "although I don't know what you hope to prove, you arrogant, conceited, selfish, egocentric little brat!"

Holmes gazed at the wall sconce, whilst Mycroft ticked off further qualities on his fingers, "-smug, self-righteous, ill-mannered, know-it-all-"

Holmes leaped and caught the glowing sconce, hanging on by wrapping one hand around the brass fixture whilst fishing with the other amongst the hissing gas jets.

"Holmes!" I cried. "This is no time to adjust the lighting! Something strange is happening, and as usual, I need you to explain what it is."

The detective landed on the floor, clutching a small glass bottle half-full of a murky liquid. "Truth serum, Watson! Cleverly concealed by Moriarty himself, but not cleverly enough. You perceive what happened, of course."

"No," I admitted.

"Of course you don't. I'll tell you. Moriarty, or someone in his employ, created this truth serum, designed to be dispersed through evaporation caused by the heat of this lamp in which it was concealed. Do you have all that, Watson?"

"No."

"Well, it's perfectly clear to me. We have been—I believe the phrase is 'set up.' Moriarty lured us all here for the fiendish purpose of instilling in us an irresistible impulse to tell each other the truth. He wants to turn us against each other, you, me, the police, everyone, so that our opposition to him will break down."

"But earlier, you said Moriarty wanted to get Gregson to-"

"I was wrong! Are you happy now? Pay attention, Watson; I need your help. I have to know how large an area this truth serum will affect. If it spreads beyond this room, the effects could be catastrophic! I have to calculate the dimensions of the room, determine the rate of dispersal, allow for the variables created by the pattern of air currents, and Watson!" He clawed the lapels of my coat and shook me so that my teeth knocked together. "_I can't do math in my head!_"

"That's disappointing," I said. "I thought you were a genius."

"I am; I just can't do math in my head."

"I wish you wouldn't sulk right now; it's most inconvenient. Let go of me so that I may close the windows before truth serum wafts over all of London. Parliament isn't far from here, and if politicians get a whiff of the stuff and start telling the truth, it will mean doom for civilization."

As Mrs. Hudson and I flew to slam the windows shut, I heard Mary say, "Calm yourself, Mr. Holmes, it's perfectly simple. The room is approximately twenty by thirty feet, with a ten foot ceiling. That makes its cubic capacity six thousand feet. Now, this is a six ounce bottle, so therefore..."

"We don't have time for this!" Constable Hopkins snatched the bottle from Holmes' grasp, upended it, and swigged its entire contents. "I always wanted to perform a noble, selfless act of courage," he announced. Then his knees buckled and he pitched face-first onto the dance floor.

"John!" Mary cried, kneeling at the young policeman's side. "Help him!"

I left beleaguered Mrs. Hudson to deal with the remaining windows, as well as the disputes that had begun to break out amongst the dancing couples, as every person in the room succumbed to the urge to say something truthful. Several marriages were wrecked and a number of commercial opportunities were squandered, by the time I rushed to Hopkins and took his pulse.

"Holmes, what was in that bottle?" I demanded.

Holmes lifted the bottle to his remarkable nose and sniffed the dregs. "Predominantly ethanol, probably to speed evaporative dispersal. Most unusual. It seems to have been distilled from the blue agave, native to the Mexican state of Jalisco. Is that a hint of lime?"

"You're saying it's mostly tequila."

"Is that a problem?"

"Yes, it's a problem! Constable Hopkins is allergic to alcohol. He'll be out for hours. And this time, it's your turn to drive him home."

"You know," Mary said, rising, and neatly smoothing her skirts, "a compulsion to tell the truth presents a unique opportunity." She fixed me with a dazzling smile that made me very nervous. "John, are you madly in love with me?"

To my horror, I blurted out, "No, but why let that spoil our fun?"

"Watson," Holmes said with evident glee, "you have the great gift of choosing intelligent associates."

"Two can play at that game," I retorted. "Holmes, tell Mary exactly what you think of her."

"If you insist, Watson. Miss Morstan, you are strangely compelling to me. Less so than The Woman-"

"He means Irene Adler," I explained. Mary shushed me by smacking me with her fan.

"-but only very slightly less," Holmes concluded. "I do so admire a capable woman, especially one who can do math in her head."

"Really," Mary cooed, taking his arm.

Mycroft intervened, and not a moment too soon. "Ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted over the hubbub. "We are all under the influence of truth serum. Bear that in mind whilst discussing anything of a personal nature. Inspectors, please gather the shreds of your dignity and guard the doors. Everyone must remain here until the effect wears off."

"How long will that take?" Mrs. Hudson asked.

Mycroft shrugged. "Until we're able to lie like civilized people again."

I hung my head in despair. This was going to be the longest evening of my life.


	9. Chapter 9 The Last Word

The professor grinned. His complicated arrangement of mirrors worked perfectly, allowing us to observe in secret from the room above. We couldn't hear what was being said, more's the pity, but judging by the reactions to it, it was unforgivable stuff.

As I was rolling on the floor laughing, I noticed an odd thing. "Professor, do you smell oranges?"

"Don't be silly, Moran. There are no oranges in this room. It's the truth serum you smell."

"Is that a fact?" As the possibilities began to dawn on me, I asked, "Tell me, Professor, how much do you weigh? When's the last time you kissed a girl? Where do you keep the money?"


End file.
